Date: May 28, 2004
Subject: Ideological bickering

At the apparent mirror image of Scholar's Notebook, the MinnBEST blog, I noticed this statement in a recent entry:

"Private schools are a drain on the resources of the public schools. They are subsidized by the public and we have nothing to show for our investment. Providence academy and these new religious schools seem to be producing nothing but arrogance."

This was posted in response to some unflattering comments about education activist Wendy Swanson-Choi that were posted by Ben Blackhawk of Providence Academy on the SCSU-Scholars blog.

I for one hope that the Internet can be used to increase understanding between the education stakeholders (including parents, teachers, legislators, taxpayers, homeschoolers, private schoolers) and advance the state of education in Minnesota, rather than merely increase the speed and efficiency of ideological bickering.

Toward this end I have invited folks from these stakeholder groups to comment on the newly-passed Minnesota science and social studies academic standards. You have already read EdWatch's comments in this blog. Michael Boucher from MinnBEST has agreed to participate. I will share others' comments with you in the future. I hope that they will focus on the merits of the standards and in so doing help the rest of us start to make some sense of how they will affect our kids.